The Gift of Sight

“There are none so blind as those who will not see,” so said Jonathan Swift, an Irish priest, writer and philosopher (1667-1745). For Israel, it is likely a case of opening people’s eyes to see the realities of what we do for the world…one pair of eyes at a time.

Here’s one story about how we are doing just that…

Israel to provide eye treatment for South Sudanese refugees in Kenya

For the past few months the Israel Foreign Ministry’s Center for International Cooperation (MASHAV) has been in touch with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Nairobi offering its assistance to the South Sudanese refugees residing in Kakuma refugee camp in Northern Kenya.

The Kakuma camp, near the town of Kakuma, is located in Kenya on the road to Sudan, west of Lake Turkana and about 50 kilometers from the Sudanese border. The camp, which has been in existence for 15 years, holds about 75,000 people, mostly South Sudanese refugees. Currently UNHCR has begun a repartition program, sending refugees from the camp back to South Sudan.Dr. Yosef Baratz, MASHAV’s project coordinator in Africa has setting up a temporary eye clinic in the camp with equipment purchased beforehand by Israel. The clinic would enable two Israeli eye doctors who would arrive on July 2, 2007 to properly operate on dozens of patients in the two-week period of their stay.

We are a democratic country; so much so, we allow our enemies into our government and from the podium of our parliament, they have the freedom to call for policies that would destroy us.
Our current enemies, those who pose the most immediate threat lie to our north. This is Hizbollah land, where according to their leader Hassan Nasrallah, “We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.”
Our enemies lie to the northeast. This is Syria. My sons have spent many months on the Golan Heights, including some tense days waiting to see how the Syrians would react after Israel sent planes to destroy a building widely believed to be the beginnings of a nuclear reactor. My oldest son fought near Gaza to help stop the rockets from being fired against Israel.
Our enemies lie further to the east. This is Iran, led by fanatics who promise that they will do all they can to accomplish in a few minutes more than what Adolf Hitler accomplished in six years of war. The Iranian leadership has made it clear in words and actions that they are after a nuclear bomb and that their goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Believe them.